Evaluating the reaching out-of-school children project in Bangladesh: a baseline study
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International Food Policy Research Institute
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Achieving universal primary education is one of the key Millennium Development Goals. In Bangladesh and other developing countries, providing universal primary education connotes a great opportunity to reduce poverty and to promote economic growth. Quality primary education would equip children from poor families with literacy, numeracy, and basic problem-solving skills to move out of poverty.
The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has devoted a significant share of its budget to providing incentives to families to send their children to school for over a decade. In an effort to increase primary school enrollment of children from poor families, the GoB had launched the Food for Education (FFE) program in 1993. The FFE program provided a free monthly ration of foodgrains (rice or wheat) to poor families in rural areas whose children attended primary school. A number of studies suggest that the FFE did raise primary school enrollment (Ahmed 2000; Ahmed and Billah 1994; Ahmed and del Ninno 2002; Khandker 1996; Meng and Ryan 2004; Ravallion and Wodon 1997). The Primary Education Stipend Program (PESP), which replaced the FFE program in 2002, provides cash assistance to poor families who send their children to primary school. GoB also provides cash assistance to girls in secondary schools. These cash stipend programs aim to increase the enrollment and retention rates of students in primary and secondary schools throughout rural Bangladesh. Recent studies indicate positive effects of these programs on educational attainment (Ahmed 2004a; Ahmed 2005a). In 2002, in order to diminish hunger in the classroom as well as to promote school enrollment and retention rates, GoB and the World Food Programme (WFP) launched the School Feeding Program (SFP) in chronically food-insecure areas of Bangladesh. An impact evaluation of the program suggests that the SFP significantly increases rates of enrollment and attendance, and reduces dropout rates. SFP also improves academic performance and nutritional status of children (Ahmed 2004b).
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agriculture